framing and representation of africa
DESCRIPTION
For decades (perhaps, centuries) global media outlets have framed and represented Africa in a negative light. These media representations have tended to overlook the diverse political, economic, social and cultural experiences of individual African countries – a situation that has led to the uncritical lumping together of African nations under the appellation of ‘Africa’. When this happens, the specific and unique conditions of her 55 nations are squeezed into a one-size-fits-all media frame. Historical and ideological forces, both from within and outside the continent, have conspired to impose this fate on Africa. The philosophies of negritude and the Organisation of African Unity were among the complicit internal forces helping to sustain such views. To evaluate this phenomenon, this essay examines the underpinnings of the framing and representation of ‘Africa’ in global media through the review literature, and seeks to answer the question of whether the continent can speak for itself, using four country-specific examples. Current media practices within the African continent, enabled by local media policies and infrastructure, have tended to rhetorically position countries primarily in accordance with their national identities, while attributing the African appellation as a secondary frame of representation.TRANSCRIPT
The Historical and Contemporary Representation of Africa in Global Media Flows: Can The Continent
Speak Back For Itself On Its Own Terms?
Prosper Yao Tsikata
Africa
Questions
• To explicate framing and representation of the African continent in global media flows, this research examines:
(a) the underpinnings of framing and representation of “Africa” in global media flows through review of literature and (b) attempts to answer the question of whether or not the continent can speak for itself using four-country specific cases .
Conspiracy of History and Ideology in Framing and Representation
Internal Historical and Ideological Forces
• Hotchpotch demarcation of the continent in in 1884 (imperial remapping the world)
• Students from the continent who studied abroad sought common identity as Africans – the African students’ Organization, USA (racial solidarity among the oppressed, Lewis 2011)
External Historical and Ideological Forces
• Irrespective of country of origin, slaves and freed slaves were cast in the African image under Jim Crow (imposition of racial systems that shored up hegemonic power, Lewis 2011).
• Solidarity of diaspora Africans with the homeland in empathy and common bond of interest, Lewis 2011).
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDXPpfGAZrU
Conspiracy of History and Ideology in Framing and Representation cont…
Internal Historical and Ideological Forces
• Landmark statement by Kwame Nkrumah on Ghana’s Independence, setting the ideological tone for the Organization of African Unity (OAU).
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foDlCCudcsE
External Historical and Ideological Forces
• colonialism, little troubled by the nuances, has always affirmed that the “nigger” was a savage, not an Angolan or a Nigeria (Fanon, 1963).
• No longer was reference made to African culture, it became barbarism (Biko).
Conspiracy of History and Ideology in Framing and Representation Con…
Internal Historical and Ideological Forces
• The Organization of African Unity (1963) and Pan-African idealism
• Negritude reechoed the collective African Identity
• Popular Culture and African consciousness – Bob Marley and Peter Tosh
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDCbe3Q2Qck
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPriRdOpENw
External Historical and Ideological Forces
• Libertarian view of Western media makes it insensitive to stereotyping out-groups (Dixon and Linz, 2000).
• Enduring representational frames from imperial and colonial adventures of the Other
“One Size Fits All” Vs. Reality
Fiction • US troops did go to Somalia
and Somalia collapsed as state.
• Rwanda had a genocide • South Africa experienced
upsurge in violence leading to its 1994 elections.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGWjskMUKk4
Truth • Somalia was a victim of Cold
War aggression with both the US and USSR shipping arms worth billions of dollars into that country
• Weapons used in the Rwanda were supplies sent earlier by France
• Transformation of a formerly racist society into a multiracial society
Enduring Images Vs. Reality
19th Century images Accra
First World Vs. Third World
New York City An Appalachian Home
Can the Continent Speak for Itself On Its Own Terms
Failures of the Ideological Devices
• Even a change of name from OAU to AU could not redirect the organization to its intended purpose
• Negritude has been under attack from the word go (lived realities of people starkly different from what the concepts tried to uphold)
Four-Country Cases • Ghana – enabling media
policy environment • Nigeria – ingenuity and
infrastructure using its movie industry
• South Africa – Media policy and infrastructure
• Zimbabwe – Reversal of fortunes as a result of bad policies
Ghana
Media Transformations • Until 1992, the media was
controlled and managed by government with just one radio and TV station
• Ghana recorded its first private radio (radio eye, a pirate radio in 1994).
• Currently, as a result of liberalization of the airwaves, Ghana has over 170 radio stations and 57 licensed TV stations.
• Multiplicity of private newspapers
Capacity to Present the Self • From a level of paucity in
media infrastructure and limiting policy, Ghana now has the ability to create its own media themes, frame and represent itself, by itself, for itself, with the possibilities of influencing how others frame and represent her.
Nigeria
Nollywood• Ingenuity and private
capital • Regional and global
presence • Between 1000 and 2000
titled movies in a year• Annual income of between
$250 - $500 million • Employs half 500,000 to 1,
000,000 people
Primary appellation, Nigeria • In its representational frames,
the appellation, “Nigerian movies,” is preeminence, not “African movies. The implication is that even in this popular cultural medium, one can clearly find a repositioning that primarily identify, frame, and represent country (Nigeria) first and, perhaps, followed by a secondary African appellation as only an accessory.
South Africa
Policy and Infrastructure • End of apartheid 1994• Freeing of the ideologically
divided media from pro and anti apartheid movements
• Globalization of South African media through private capital
• Big Brother Africa• World Cup 2010
regional and global representation
• “Satellite television was working to connect members of the world’s poorest continent where “three decades of the concept of Pan-Africanism, OAU, and liberation philosophy has fizzled out” (Sunday Times). In this, the primary appellation is underscored.
Zimbabwe
What bad policies can do• From the golden age of the
media to the gloomy age of protectionism
• Closing down of newspapers and media houses of critical of government
• Job loss, journalist sent into exile, etc.
Denting of the Image of Zimbabwe
• This has led to the denting of the image of Zimbabwe in the international community as a country, and not the image of Ghana, South Africa or Nigeria along those lines
Philosophical and Technological Revolutions
Postmodern Representations • decentralization and the
weakening of mechanisms of power and control, including the power to frame and represent others, from the urban centers and metropolis of power.
• This is resplendent with the deconstructive elements of postmodernity
Media Infrastructure Availability
Country 2008 2011
Ghana 4.3 14.1
Nigeria 15.9 28.4
South Africa 8.5 20.9
Zimbabwe 11.4 15.7
Morocco 33.1 51.0
Seychelles 39.8 43.6
Sierra-Leone 0.3 Unknown
Norway 90.8 93.5
DANGERS OF MISREPRESENTATION
• The tendencies for “one size fit all” poses a great moral and ethical dilemma for framing and representation.